


Burn and Freeze

by Jmeelee



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Chapter 1 is canon divergent, Chapter 2 is modern au, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-28
Updated: 2014-04-28
Packaged: 2018-01-21 03:31:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1536020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jmeelee/pseuds/Jmeelee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the Jaime x Brienne Quote Fic Challenge: "My Lady, you should have wed me when I made my offer."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The first chapter is canon divergent, and the second is a modern au. Both chapters are stand alone and can be read separately, and both are my takes on the quote.

Maester Qyburn seemed wary of startling her when he entered the candlelit chamber that served as her prison cell, his head inclined and his brown eyes beseeching. The Queen’s Confessor, they named him, for his vicious methods of extracting the information Cersei Lannister wanted to hear. Whenever Brienne had been unfortunate enough to encounter him at court, a prickle of dread had always run down her spine. This instance was no different. “The Queen says you have something to tell me,” Qyburn proclaimed. Her trepidation intensified.  


Here it was, her moment. She cleared her throat and made herself do it. It was her only hope to protect Jaime; she could not help herself.  


Brienne had been sent to Kings Landing at the age of seventeen, after three betrothals had withered and died like roses in winter. Her father grew weary that her mounting skills with sword and mace would kill her marriage prospects completely, so he had enlisted the help of his brother, her renowned Uncle Endrew of The Night’s Watch, to secure Brienne a place at court serving Cersei Lannister, the Queen Regent. Her eyes burned at the memory of her introduction to the Queen.  


“Who has sent me this ridiculous creature?” Cersei cruelly declared upon first sight of Brienne’s lumbering frame. She always appeared more a sow in silk than a true lady, unlike Cersei, the centerpiece of any room, in cloth spun of gold thinned to thread. _“You are bound to obey and serve,”_ her beloved father entreated her as she stepped aboard the ship that would steer her away from Tarth and toward her destiny. She would not disappoint him.  


She attempted an awkward and clumsy curtsy. “My good nuncle Endrew, and my father, the Evenstar, Selwyn of House Tarth have sent me to serve you, your Grace, if you would have me.” Brienne may not appear a Lady, but she did not lack decorum.  


“Oh yes,” Cersei laughed heartlessly, “I now recall that I was to receive a descendant of Sir Duncan the Tall, famous knight of the Kingsguard. I have heard rumors that you enjoy dressing in mail and wielding a sword, to your father’s shame. You do appear more man than woman, I must say. I will have you as a maid-of-honor, Lady Brienne, though I suppose you would be more use in the yard with my twin brother Jaime than with me.”  


Ser Jaime Lannister of the Kingsguard was in court that day, his personage stately, standing on guard at the side of the throne room dressed in a pristine white cloak. He had smirked at Brienne’s redden cheeks. “In whatever way I can please your Grace, I will,” Brienne replied in shame.  


Cersei had not lied. Most days the mere sight of Brienne aggravated her, and she often banished Brienne to the yard where Jaime, an accomplished swordsman, was assisting the master-at-arms. “Is it true,” he asked a few months after she had arrived, “that you know how to wield a sword?”  


“I do, Ser,” she admitted. “My father allowed me to train with our master-at-arms, Ser Goodwin. He trained me well.”  


“Well enough to best me?” Jaime challenged. In her brief time at court Brienne found the Queen’s brother to be forceful and reckless, though very attractive. He was hardy, wise and liberal with his insults, yet fierce in courage and courtly in fashion. Brienne was shy but knew she had some talent with a blade, and would not back down from a fight.  


“I do not know, Ser, but there is only one way to find out.” When Jaime smiled at her, it was as blinding and warm as the golden sun. A dragon might have flown over the yard; she would never have noticed. There was only him.  


Jaime did best her that afternoon, but Brienne held her own, earning her his respect. The _Kingslayer_ , they called him, for putting a sword through the Mad King Aerys Targaryen’s back, yet that was not the man she came to know. The Jaime she knew was a young lion. Their swords kissed that day, and their lips soon followed.  


Her strength became a weakness, a tool for her destruction. Her talent in the fighting yard drew her to Jaime and drew Jaime to her. She began to meet him in secret outside the training yard, and their encounters turned to passion.  


The day Hyle Hunt came to court was the day her world ended.  


“I am here to offer Her Grace’s mercy. Your only hope is to confess your sins. You must confess all if you hope to receive the Queen’s forgiveness,” Qyburn prompted, drawing her back to the present. “You must admit to being betrothed to Hyle Hunt when you arrived at court.”  


“You are asking me to admit to a pre-contract that did not exist. I will not do it,” Brienne replied stubbornly.  


“Brienne, Hyle Hunt told the Queen that you were betrothed. He has been taken in for questioning.” Questioning, she knew, meant torture. He would admit to anything under Qyburn’s brand of torment. Foolish Hyle had thought he could better his prospects by aligning himself with the Queen, but Cersei was a lioness and would clean her teeth with his bones. “He claims that you were promised to him when you were fourteen, and that he has carnal knowledge of you.”  


“I have no carnal knowledge of Hunt, and he has none of me. I did know him, when I was a girl. He came to my father’s hall with Lord Renly Baratheon. He sparred with me in the yard on a few occasions and brought me a book with tales of famous knights, but there was no contract. With his offer, he sought to ridicule me in front of his companions. Hunt is only a hedge knight; if he had expectations of marriage my father would have repudiated them instantaneously.”  


“So you insist on denying these allegations?” Qyburn asked. Brienne nodded. “I must also ask, what is the nature of your relationship with the Queen’s twin brother, Jaime Lannister?”  


Here Brienne hesitated. The night prior, Cersei had visited Brienne’s tower cell dressed in a mottled brown cloak with a hood concealing her face. Would the Queen keep the vow she had made to Brienne in the hour of the wolf? Cersei had promised that Jaime would retain his position of Lord Commander if Brienne would admit her sins and suffer for them. “The bodies of men are weak. He did not love you. Cunt can make a fool of any man,” Cersei had proclaimed in parting.  


“Remember, the Queen may be merciful if you are completely honest,” Qyburn said, almost causing Brienne to laugh. Only mad men fought wars they could not win, and Brienne was not mad enough to believe she would do Jaime any favors by resisting the Queen. She had no choice.  


“I am weak, Septon Qyburn. I am weak of flesh and of mind. I seduced Jaime Lannister, the brother of Queen Cersei and Commander of the Kingsguard.”  


“This is a grave offence, Brienne, but the Queen may be merciful.” How could there be any mercy for one such as her?  


“He must not be blamed,” Brienne insisted in panic, “it was my failing.”  


Qyburn looked upon her with pitying expression. The look in his eyes said a woman like Brienne could never wantonly seduce a man. “Do you think Jaime Lannister is the first Kingsguard to bed a woman? Do you believe you could have been his first? You are wiser than that, child, if foolhardy to become tangled with the Lannisters. You must know why the Queen wants you out of Jaime’s life.” She did know. Jaime had been Cersei’s lover since they were children together at Casterly Rock, and Cersei did not share. Defeated, Brienne wrote out her confession, and Qyburn took it away.  


Crows circled overhead the following morning, screaming loudly, their black wings spread against the blue sky. Brienne’s dim reflection in the warped glass that day was a girl, _a woman_ , she barely recognized. Staring at her freckled face, her overfull lips, she wondered how Jaime could ever have been drawn to her, a dark horse, when his sister was the rising sun.  


At evenfall, two guards arrived to escort Brienne to the dungeon to await the Queen’s ruling on her fate. It was a relief, for from her tower window she had a perfect view of a scaffold being built. As they descended into the dungeons Brienne passed prisoners in dank cells, and one filthy man leapt to the iron bars of his prison chamber as she passed. He was so badly beaten she almost did not recognize him. It was Hyle Hunt, dressed in pauper rags, his scraggly beard matted with dried blood.  


“You should have wed me when I made my offer,” he yelled, spittle flying though his cracked and bleeding lips. “Neither of us would be dying. I would have Tarth!” He screamed at her, but in a moment the guards pushed her down the corridor and into a tiny cell. She never saw Hyle again.  


Qyburn arrived shortly after to inform her that the Queen accepted her confession and Brienne was scheduled to be executed the following morning. “Am I to be granted permission to see Jaime?” she asked without hope.  


He looked at her sadly. “You must not anticipate Ser Jaime aiding in your release, my Lady. He is sworn to protect,” Qyburn allowed, “but not sworn to protect you from her. I doubt the Queen has made him aware of her plans; she rarely does these days. You must prepare your soul to meet the Stranger.”  


How does one do such a thing, Brienne wondered, but knew Qyburn would offer her no guidance. “Is this the first time a brother of the Kingsguard has been allowed to serve, after knowledge of his broken vows?” Brienne asked. Qyburn confirmed her inquest. “It seems I’ve made a mark upon history, then. I have changed the way the game is played.”  


“What game is that, Lady Brienne?”  


“The game of thrones,” she whispered.  


Suddenly, a mighty roar vibrated the stones. The dungeons, it would seem, were located below the royal menagerie where the callous King Joffery kept his beautiful, exotic animals locked away in cages. The roar was coming from the lion, the sigil of House Lannister. Once it had been an imposing creature, but sealed in its prison the beast had become pitiful. The sound of his roar had once filled Brienne with melancholy, but this time the sound gave her a powerful feeling in her chest. The beast may be caged and facing impending death, but it was not broken. Perhaps there was still strength left to the imprisoned: courage and dignity. Brienne steeled her spine and vowed not to lose either. No one present at her execution would forget her grace, her poise in the last moments of her life.  


“I have one simple request, Maester Qyburn.”  


“If it is in my power, I will grant it to you.”  


“Bring the block to my room.”  


That night by the light of a candle that allowed sinister shadows to steal across the stone floor toward her bare feet, Brienne practiced like a mummer on a stage, settling her neck upon the block again and again, to know how to do it with grace. She would die, she vowed, with more dignity than even Queen Cersei possessed.  


The morning dawned cool and crisp though the sun was dazzlingly bright. While she walked toward the scaffold, she averted her eyes from the block, the executioner, and the crowd that had gathered, squinting in the sun. _Is Jaime in the crowd_ , she wondered, _or does he stand behind his sister and father?_ She dared not search the mob for his face for fear her hard won poise would be lost.  


The wind caught the thin white shift Brienne had been dressed in, making it billow around her ankles. Absurdly, the meager gown made her towering frame appear childish. There was murmuring in the crowd as she climbed the steps of the scaffold, and once she stood before the block, stained with blood from Hyle’s execution before her, she felt sick. The straw scattered on the ground below the scaffold and around the block was the color of her hair and soaked with blood. Brienne finally turned to face the crowd. To her surprise, their faces were sad and angry. _Are the people angry with me, or for me?_ Tears welled in her eyes but she vowed to be brave. She would not weep for the Queen’s enjoyment.  


“She is just a child,” someone in the crowd cried. “Seven save you child!”  


_The world is full of horrors_ , Jaime had once told her, _and you can fight them, laugh at them or look without seeing. Go away inside._ Brienne would go away, at Cersei’s command, but she would have the world see.  


“Please, pray for me,” Brienne beseeched the crowd, her voice steady. She should be begging the Gods for forgiveness and the crowd for prayers for the Queen, as was proper, but she would not. Like the Lannister lion, she would be strong until the end. “I die here today a sinner, a traitor to the crown, but I loved Jaime Lannister with all my heart. Even death will not steal that from me.” Some in the crowd cheered. Cersei was watching, Brienne knew, she could feel the Queen’s gaze burning her. Brienne lifted her hand to cover her eyes and search for Lannister faces, but the executioner stepped forward, tying a cloth around her head, obscuring her vision. Her legs folded gracefully under her. She did not cry. She leaned forward, pressing her neck to the block.  


“Brienne! Brienne!” It was Jaime; she would know the sound of his voice anywhere. He was screaming her name too late. She took a deep breath and listened not to his anguished words, but instead to the sound of her own heart, beating like a drum.


	2. Chapter 2

_I woke up today from a dream so tangible I could taste the freckles on your pale skin and feel the warmth of your long legs wrapping around my torso, but you weren’t there beside me. You are gone, and I cannot sleep. We ended our relationship loving and hating each other in equal measure. Now all I have left is the fantasy of you._

_I finally know what I want, but I know too late. I want you to decide that the person who makes you happiest and makes your life worth living is me._  


_Is he truly the man for you? The man you marry should be someone committed to dying beside you, daily, as he breaks down your walls, someone who will be more faithful to you than he is to his own safety. That man should be someone willing to embrace the peril of sacrifice, the surrender of strength, and the danger of vulnerability. He must be someone who wants to spend his life plunging into a rushing, dangerous love with you and only you._  


_The most agonizing part of this is the prospect that the love of your life may simply not be me._  


_What are we doing, Brienne? You shouldn’t be marrying him. You should be marrying me._  


He handed her the letter as they passed in a narrow hallway at work, his face a mask of indifference under the florescent bulbs. She was internally congratulating herself on the slow and confident gait of her walk as she slipped past him. Only recently had she stopped rerouting herself when she saw him coming, finally coming to terms with the awkwardness and putting their shared past behind her. He spoke only one word, her name, and the diamond in her ring caught the garish light as her hand reached out toward the letter. His written words threw her steady progress into a tailspin.  


Brienne was not proud that she furtively read his letter seven times while sitting at her work desk, then perused it another three times while seated in the safety of her car in the parking lot after work. She could not walk into the home she shared with Jaime in this disconcerted state, so she phoned the one person who had ample amounts of experience with these sorts of complex situations. She called Margaery Tyrell.  


Margaery willingly met her in a frozen yogurt shop forty-five minutes later. Tucking a stray strand of chestnut hair behind her ear, she silently reviewed Hyle’s letter while Brienne absentmindedly swirled a pink plastic spoon through her yogurt with no intention of taking a bite. Every few moments, the pretty girl made an unladylike grunt of discontent. Finally, she smacked the letter down on the table between them and leveled her gaze at Brienne.  


“What are your thoughts?” Brienne desperately probed.  


“The most interesting part is when he outlines what you need in a husband.” Margarery’s lips curled up in the corners. “The weasel doesn’t describe himself, does he?”  


“No, he doesn’t,” Brienne agreed, solemnly. “He’s describing Jaime.” She didn’t admit to Margaery that, to her, another section of the letter was prompting her to reexamine it incessantly.  


“I’d burn it,” Margaery advised definitively, then plunged into her strawberry flavored frozen treat with relish.  
Despite the excellent counsel, Brienne did not burn the letter. She read it twice more when she pulled into her driveway that night, because she knew Jaime wouldn’t be home from the office for another fifteen minutes. Then she hid it in a box of new running sneakers, because her feet were half a size bigger than Jaime’s and she knew he would never glance inside. She swore to put the missive out of her mind because, knowing Hyle the way she had during their fleeting time together, not one word he’d written was sincere.  


Even though Brienne kept the note hidden away in the shoebox, she forsook her vow to disregard it on a daily basis. She contemplated it while making dinner and doing dishes. She ruminated on the words while at the gym and in the shower. She thought of it when she glimpsed Hyle from a distance at work, but she fled from having an encounter with him. He did not attempt to contact her again, and she recognized without a doubt that he had not intended his words in earnest; he had only been trying to cast doubts into her mind and ruin her happiness.  


On a Sunday two weeks before her wedding, Brienne walked into the apartment she shared with Jaime, her arms full to overflowing with gifts from her bridal shower, to find Jaime sitting cross-legged on the floor of their bedroom, the cursed letter crumpled in his fist. The breath stalled painfully in her throat as his green eyes pierced her soul and bruised her skin.  
“I…I…” she began, but speech, as usual, failed her.  


“When did he write you this letter?” Jaime enquired with deadly calm.  


“Three weeks ago,” Brienne miserably admitted. “I should have told you. I should have thrown it away. I never should have kept it.”  


“Why did you keep it?”  


It was a valid question. How could she explain why she had kept the letter? She did not want to be with Hyle. In fact, she felt fortunate to have escaped her brief relationship with him. Hyle withheld his love and he played games. He hadn’t respected her. Oftentimes he had been cruel. How could she describe to Jaime the feelings his letter had provoked from her heart?  
When she had shared the letter with Margaery, the pretty girl had latched onto Hyle’s narrative of the ideal husband. Yet that was not what replayed, a broken record, in Brienne’s mind. Instead, it had been the word fantasy. There had been nothing real between Brienne and Hyle. They had not loved or hated in equal measure. _That_ was the true fantasy. Hyle Hunt had not loved at all.  


Brienne was the sole author of her life, but Hyle and Jaime were chapters without which her story would be incomplete. She saved the letter because it had made her feel blessed to be with Jaime.  


“Do you believe it?” Jaime asked, watching her struggle to express herself.  


“Do I believe what?” she whispered.  


“Do you believe that you should be marrying Hyle?”  


She dropped all the shower presents to the ground, hearing Genna Lannister’s gift of an obnoxiously extravagant china plate crash and shatter in its box. Brienne stepped over the scattered packages, took Jaime’s face between her palms and leaned down to place a chaste kiss on his lips. “You are the man I love,” she whispered, “not Hyle. It could never be Hyle.”  
“Prove it,” Jaime challenged her, biting her lower lip as he gathered her in his arms.  


She did, and after, she burned the letter.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Chicky and the ladies at Tumblr- thank you for making this fun challenge and letting me be a part. The JB fandom is the BEST FANDOM and I love being a part of it. A special thank you to Tamjlee- I would not have had the confidence to post the canon divergent chapter without your insightful and positive input. You are a fic comment goddess and a blessing to the fandom.


End file.
